While they wint sorrowfully, but speedily, along,--as though getting near the place would do any good,--they met Misther James Dingle trotting towards them. Two or three--and Mick Maguire was among'em--had got a-head of the rest; and before they could speak, James Dingle pulled up his horse, and said to them,--“God save ye, boys! I've just seen the big eagle carrying off that in his claw, which I'm sure is a child, by the clothes. Whose it is, I haven't heard; he may have brought it miles; but I'll give any of you two sparkling yellow boys, that will climb the crag and get it down from him, dead or alive.” Upon this, Mick Maguire tould him the whole story, whose child it was, and how the eagle got it; and before he'd done, the whole cavalcade of them were round him, crying, “Oh! Misther James! what'll we do?” For, next to the Priest, and the lady at The Beg, every one looked up to young Dingle for advice in the day of distress. And such wailing and bothering there was about him, that he couldn't be heard for a minute and more: at last, Father Killala, who had joined the people, got silence for him. The colour had left his cheek, and his lips looked hard and dry; but he spoke out coolly and distinctly, and said, “Though we're tould that the crag has been climbed, and the eagle's nest reached, yet no one was ever known, or reported in tradition, to have got down from it again. Now, Malachi Roe, do you take my horse and ride off to the beach with the best speed you can, and bring a roll of cord back with you, and ropes, if you can get them: but bring the cord away at once, if there's any delay with the ropes; for they may be got after. I'd go for it, but I wouldn't make myself a bit more fatigued than I now am, for that's need-less; and while you're gone, I'll be getting ready. Should I reach the nest, I can lower the child to you, if I never come back myself.” “And is it you that's going, sir?” says Mick Maguire. “It is, Mick,” he answered; “no one else will, and so I suppose I must.” And then all of them, that a minute before was dying to meet with any one that would go, began moaning in an under tone, and seemed sorry, and half inclined to persuade James Dingle not to make the attempt. One fellow muttered--and it wasn't well of him--“A man's life is worth more than a child's.” “I don't know that,” said James Dingle; “and what if it was?--We were all children once, and not able to help ourselves; but there was then men about, who had strength given them to protect us. Now we're men, we ought to do by the children, the same that others, whose heads lie low, did for us,--or would have done for us, if need was,--when we were babies.” “Mr. Dingle,” said Father Killala, coming up to him, “we can but ill afford to lose you:--I'd rather another wint who had a heart and body equal to your own; but as no one else offers, go, and God bless you!”